Obesity stigma can follow by you even when you're slim ...

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Losing weight is often a momentous moment in any woman?s life, but it seems that other people don?t revel in that glory.
A new study has revealed that even when a woman loses a significant amount of weight, her friends, family and colleagues will still think of her as fat.

Even if you?ve gone from a size 20 to a size 12, the stigma of obesity never quite leaves you, say scientists, who stress that other people may still label you as greedy and lazy.

The unfair stigma was identified by researchers at Manchester University, along with their counterparts at the University of Hawaii and Monash University in Melbourne. Using volunteers to assess the outward appearance of women, some of whom had previously been fat, the scientists identified a definite obesity-related negativity. Even when the volunteers were complete strangers to the women being assessed, they still marked them down for having been fat before.

The 273 volunteers were asked to look at pictures of five women, all 31, and given notes about each. They then had to rate their attractiveness and asked if they liked them or not.

Of the five women, one had been slim all her life, another had been overweight all her life while the other three had previously been fat but had lost five stone to become a normal size.

Most volunteers regarded the woman who had always been slim as the most attractive, with the ones who had previously been obese but had lost weight lagging behind. Watching the volunteers, the scientists recorded that they also made negative comments about these women and had what they called ?fat prejudices?.

The researchers pointed out that the obesity stigma was so ?powerful and enduring that it may even outlast the obesity itself.?
They also highlighted how we as a society need to address our attitudes to obesity; after all, encouraging the obese to lose weight for their own health should be a positive thing.

Said Dr Kerry O?Brien from Manchester University?s School of Psychological Sciences: ?Many people who are perceived as ?fat? are struggling in vain to lose weight in order to escape this painful social stigma.

?We need to rethink our approaches to and views of weight and obesity. Given the great number of people who may be negatively affected by this prejudice, obesity discrimination needs to be reduced.?

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